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I'm feeling so discouraged lately. And was hoping to hear of anyone who's had some success with fighting Cryptococcus, or just success stories in general.
I adopted my cat Merlin a year ago. He was found in the parking lot of Target and came with giardia. I successfully treated him for that. In March of this year, he started showing symptoms of a upper respiratory infection (sneezing and runny eyes). I took him to 3 different vets that month and they all kept diagnosing him with an upper respiratory infection and kept giving him different antibiotics. He didn't get better so I took him in to the vet again and this time, they did blood work, PCR test and took xrays. He came back positive for this bacteria called mycroplasma. He then went on another set of antibiotics. However, he started getting a swelling on his nose bridge and I noticed he had really enlarged lymph nodes so back to the vet I went. The vet told me enlarged lymph nodes was not common for cats. He suspected cancer or a fungal infection. He did a cytology on the lymph nodes and it came back positive for cryptococcus, a fungal infection. He titer level was 1: 32768 (I'm not even sure what that means but the vet said thats really high)
I was told it takes months, maybe even years to get rid of this fungal infection
My vet told me that most pet owners end up putting their cat down... not because its not treatable but because the treatment is so long and expensive. Merlin is only a year and half old, so of course I wanted to fight it regardless of price. We started the cryptococcus treatment on May 13 (He is on 4 ml of Itrafungol itraconazole and .5 ml of prednisolone daily). 2 weeks into the medicine, it started cause diaherra which caused him to not eat so then he also went on metroznole to help with his stool.
It is sooo hard to give him his medication. He is normally the sweetest cat but fights me tooth and nail with liquid medication. I have scratches all over my body and I get so stressed out when it comes time to give him his medication. I'm sure he can feel I'm stressed out which is probably stressing him out as well. The prednisolone medicine makes him gag every single time I give it to him and then he ends up throwing up every so often right after I give it to him.
It's now been a month on the medication and I don't see any visible signs of improvement. The swelling on his one nostril is so bad that he can't breathe out of it at all. I dont know if its the medicine or his swollen lymph nodes or maybe just the fact that he can't smell his food, but he only eats about half his normal portion of food. I have an appointment with an internal medicine specialist in two weeks. And another appointment with my regular vet in three weeks to check his titer levels and to check his kidney to make sure his kidneys are okay on all this medicine. I feel so bad for him and I feel so helpless
I adopted my cat Merlin a year ago. He was found in the parking lot of Target and came with giardia. I successfully treated him for that. In March of this year, he started showing symptoms of a upper respiratory infection (sneezing and runny eyes). I took him to 3 different vets that month and they all kept diagnosing him with an upper respiratory infection and kept giving him different antibiotics. He didn't get better so I took him in to the vet again and this time, they did blood work, PCR test and took xrays. He came back positive for this bacteria called mycroplasma. He then went on another set of antibiotics. However, he started getting a swelling on his nose bridge and I noticed he had really enlarged lymph nodes so back to the vet I went. The vet told me enlarged lymph nodes was not common for cats. He suspected cancer or a fungal infection. He did a cytology on the lymph nodes and it came back positive for cryptococcus, a fungal infection. He titer level was 1: 32768 (I'm not even sure what that means but the vet said thats really high)
I was told it takes months, maybe even years to get rid of this fungal infection
It is sooo hard to give him his medication. He is normally the sweetest cat but fights me tooth and nail with liquid medication. I have scratches all over my body and I get so stressed out when it comes time to give him his medication. I'm sure he can feel I'm stressed out which is probably stressing him out as well. The prednisolone medicine makes him gag every single time I give it to him and then he ends up throwing up every so often right after I give it to him.
It's now been a month on the medication and I don't see any visible signs of improvement. The swelling on his one nostril is so bad that he can't breathe out of it at all. I dont know if its the medicine or his swollen lymph nodes or maybe just the fact that he can't smell his food, but he only eats about half his normal portion of food. I have an appointment with an internal medicine specialist in two weeks. And another appointment with my regular vet in three weeks to check his titer levels and to check his kidney to make sure his kidneys are okay on all this medicine. I feel so bad for him and I feel so helpless
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